Cold Bravery
by SalomeLily
Summary: Aunt Bella has always had quite a lot of influence over Draco. Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Round 1.


**The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition**

**Team: Pride of Portree**

**Position: Beater #2**

**Prompt: niece/nephew**

**Additional prompts:**

**(dialogue) "Don't tell me what to do!"**

**(quote) "Courage without conscience is a wild beast." Robert Green Ingersoll**

**(word) stubborn**

. ..

It was a small gathering. The Dark Lord sat at the head of the table - _Father's place_, thought Draco with a slight wince. Aunt Bellatrix was on his right. She sneered at her only nephew, running her hand possessively along the edge of the mahogany table. _Mine_, the gesture said, as clearly as if she had spoken aloud. _This is mine now. _Mother was next to her sister, her face masklike. It had been she that had taught Draco the art of Occlumency, he recalled with a fleeting surge of pride. Father was on the Dark Lord's left. He couldn't bear to look at his son.

"Ah, young Draco."

The cold, strangely high voice sent Draco's skin crawling, as always. Would he ever grow accustomed to seeing that flat white face, the scarlet, reptilian eyes . . . ?

"I have a special mission for you, Draco Malfoy. A most honorable task, of the utmost . . . importance to our cause."

Aunt Bella gave a mad cackle. Draco glanced trepidly at her, his blood curdling. Anything that made her smile like that couldn't possibly be good news.

"What is the mission, my Lord?" It wasn't hard to keep his voice from shaking. He was, of course, a _very_ accomplished Occlumens.

"Kill Albus Dumbledore."

Draco stood, statuelike, for a moment, turning over the words in his head.

It was a suicide mission.

This was Father's punishment, for losing to the Potter bastard and his gang of Mudbloods. The Malfoy boy's would pay the blood price. White-hot antagonism spiked through him for the briefest instant, but now wasn't the time. _I'll get revenge later, _he promised himself.

"I accept this mission, my Lord."

He couldn't refuse, but he needed to survive this. An escape - yes. He would contact Dumbledore, ask for his protection, beg on his knees if necessary. Mother could come too. It would be -

In the midst of his planning, Draco's sun-stained silver eyes happened to meet Aunt Bella's mocking dark ones. _She knew_. His aunt knew exactly what he was thinking, Occlumens or no. They had the same type of mind: gritty, detail-loving, concise. Self-interested above all. She would kill him before she would let Draco escape this life.

The shadow of a smirk graced her haughty face as the resolution of a dead man crept over her nephew's face.

"It will be an honor."

. . .

Severus Snape looked at his student with a trace of pity, not for the first time. _The boy was doomed to play a pawn in this game from the start._

If there was one thing Draco couldn't suffer, it was pity. He glared at Snape with all of the rancor her could muster.

"I'm going to do it," he said baldly.

"Let me help you, Draco. Dumbledore trusts me. I can -"

"No, thanks," said Draco curtly. He turned on his heel and stormed down the hall.

He was on the point of turning back, to apologize and request help, when Aunt Bella's face surfaced in his mind. She was laughing, laughing, always at him. She could always anticipate his next move with the exactness of a striking cobra, and his efforts to kill a man were amusing to her.

He had to do this alone.

. . .

Potter was staring at him again.

He seemed obsessed this year, beyond their usual levels of rivalry. The deadly skirmish at the Ministry last summer had jolted both boys awake to the reality of war, and each had chosen in the other his most likely enemy.

The Boy Who Lived For Now wouldn't be a serious threat, though. Crabbe and Goyle, though imbecilic to a fault, would at least function as bodyguards. Even if Potter somehow managed to trace him to the Room of Hidden Things with his super-stalker skills, he wouldn't be able to enter.

Still, did he really have to stare like that? It was making Draco paranoid.

. . .

Draco heaved a deep, rattling breath, tears flowing freely down his face for the first time in what felt like ages. The odd, bespectacled ghost girl had been surpisingly comforting. She was always patient with him, always blandly reassuring. That was _exactly_ what he needed. A little catharsis, before returning to the hunt. Lonely ghosts made the best therapists.

"I don't think I can do this," he rasped, gripping the sides of the sink with white knuckles. From one of the cubicles, Myrtle made a faint sympathetic noise.

"Don't, don't . . . here, tell me what's wrong."

"No one can help me." Draco was only peripherally aware that his entire body was vibrating. "I can't do it . . . I can't . . . It won't work . . . and unless I do it soon . . . he says he'll kill me . . ."

He looked up and directly into the reflected, startlingly green eyes of Potter.

Instantly, shame and rage pounded through Draco's veins. He saw red, then his wand was in his hand.

_"Don't get angry. Anger isn't enough. You have to _enjoy _yourself, you have to let the natural Schadenfreude take over."_

They sparred briefly back and forth. It was easy to block Potter's spells. His technique was blocky. Mere righteous anger was no match for the spirit of revenge . . .

_"You have to _feel_ it, Draco, to know what you're doing to your enemies," her voice hissed in his ear. "Only then can you wield its power effectively."_

Water was everywhere. The ghost was screaming.

_"Crucio!"_

And it wasn't Potter's face that he saw now, it was his aunt's, grinning grotesquely as Draco was ripped apart by pain.

His fingers tightened on his wand, his face contorted by the heat of madness.

"Cruci -"

"_SECTUMSEMPRA_!"

. . .

When Draco woke, the first thing he knew was relief. He was in a cloud, and everything was blissfully blank.

A searing pain, running like a knife from his mouth to his naval, shattered the illusion quite cleanly a moment later.

Still he was reluctant to open his eyes, to fall back into the madly rushing stream of consciousness. There was something he wanted to avoid . . .

All at once, the entire thing came crashing down on his mind. The mission. The threats, Draco's repeated failures. The bathroom, the screaming ghost girl. The surprise duel.

In spite of himself, Draco felt a slight twinge of respect. _Where had Potter learnt that spell? It was bloody effective. Quite literally._

Out of immediate curiosity, he cracked one eye open the tiniest bit. He was not bleeding freely. He wasn't even scarred. On later examination, the only superficial wound left was a faint pink line showing where Potter has slashed him.

Draco opened the other eye and groaned. The familiar batlike outline of Snape had just entered the hospital wing.

"Good. You're awake. We need to talk."

"Don't want to," said Draco, feigning sluggishness, though he felt anything but slow. The pain, combined with the adrenaline jolt he'd gotten from remembering the mission, had left him wide awake and anxious.

"I had Madame Pomfrey cut off your sedative supply several hours ago, so drop the act. We're also alone, so feel at liberty to speak you mind."

_Damn him_.

"What?" snapped Draco. He kept one eye open to glare venomously at Snape. Cutting off the sedative was _not_ appreciated.

"Draco Malfoy, this is getting ridiculous. You are a completely incompetent assassin. You are a danger to yourself and seemingly everyone except the target, and your latest little scheme has culminated in a violent scuffle with Dumbledore's favorite."

"Potter's fault," muttered Draco.

"I don't doubt it." Snape sneered fleetingly. "However, you must drop this mission before you get someone killed, and I don't mean the target. Let me finish the task."

He reopened his other eye. Snape slid into focus.

"No."

"You're being headstrong and foolish, boy. Just back down and -"

"Don't tell me what to do!"

His voice rang with surprising authority, making Snape raise an eyebrow.

"It's not going to be my funeral, Draco, and I highly doubt that it will be - Dumbledore's."

"Shut up and knock me out again."

The Potions master obliged, giving him a small cup of fragrant blue liquid that had been standing just out of reach. Before the fog enclosed his mind again, Draco mumbled, half to himself, "I'll take care of it . . ."

. . .

Draco looked unseeingly across the sloping green lawns of the Hogwarts grounds. He was standing at a window, quietly collecting his thoughts.

It would happen tomorrow. _This_ plan was going to work. His mission would be complete. Fulfilled.

It had taken ages, no denying that. But it would be worth it tonight, at the perfect climax of his beautifully orchestrated plot.

Aunt Bella had been right all along. When one could let go of silly things like _conscience _and _doubt_ and _anger_, then - and only then - could the true human beast be released. The killer instinct was a cold, precise thing, a subtle knife. He had first experienced that when dueling Potter. He had _wanted_ to hurt him, to tear him. Aunt Bella had tried to show him that before, that righteous anger was a blunt, unsound instrument, but he had been too weak to understand then.

He turned curtly on his heel and strode off down the corridor.

Draco was, after all, quite brave.


End file.
